Ablaze
by DarkMayhem
Summary: Dave Karofsky blows up his computer. Um...better than it sounds? A Last Author Standing contest entry written during early season 2. Thus it's a bit AU... Warnings: homophobia and stereotyping. One-sided Kurtofsky.


My computer is dying, so I'm going through some of my hard drive and uploading old stories that I wrote but never posted...

This one was written during early season 2 for a "Last Author Standing" contest. The prompt was: [Character] blows up a computer. The basic rules were that the story had to be 1000 characters or under. It got me through to the next week *woot*. (Alas, although I made it to the final round, I had to drop out during the last week and was NOT the last author standing...)

Warnings: It's from Dave's POV, so there are some bits of homophobia and some stereotyping, etc. These are what I imagined the character thinking at the time, not what I really think...

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Dave Karofsky wasn't gay.

It's not that he actually liked the frou-frou potpourri candles that he was burning as he sat using the family laptop. He was only burning them because his mom had left them out on the living room table and he didn't want to alert his dad to the fact that he was up at this hour by turning on the overhead lights. And it certainly wasn't like he was going to sit there in the dark looking at Hummel's Facebook in the dark. Besides, the candles were Vanilla Spice, a nice manly scent; most certainly not gay.

He totally didn't stalk Kurt Hummel on Facebook because he liked the little freak or anything, Dave justified as he pulled up the site. He only checked out the page so that he'd have plenty of ammo to use against Hummel if the pipsqueak tried to act all high and mighty superior or something. Dave couldn't decipher most of Hummel's bizarre little comments, but the photo pages were chock-full of stuff Dave could mock. Not that he looked at the pictures regularly or anything; he just checked back every night or two to see if the pansy had added any more pictures of himself in his weird girlie little outfits.

Of course he always had to check to see if that picture of Hummel in skin-tight black leather pants and mesh top was still on the site. That one, he told himself, would be invaluable should he ever need to post pictures around school to humiliate the kid or put him in his place if he ever started getting too full of himself or anything.

Dave swallowed a swig of the beer he'd pilfered from his father's stash and nervously licked his lips as he stared at the photo. The dark netting made Hummel's skin look even paler than usual, which also made Hummel's perky little nipples stick out. The fairy's pants accentuated that incredibly slender waist. Not that Dave noticed or anything.

Dave most certainly didn't let out a small moan as he pulled up the full size photo…just to make sure it was there, of course. Maybe he should save it to his hard drive just in case Hummel should someday decide to remove it from his page.

He right clicked on the picture and was about to save it in his Documents file, but decided that it would be a really bad idea. What if his dad happened across it? The last thing he wanted was for his dad to think he was some kind of homo.

So maybe he should print it out instead. That way he could hide it under his mattress. His dad rarely ever entered his room. His mom knew all about his skin mags, of course, but he was pretty certain she wouldn't ever go through them or anything, so it seemed like a pretty good hiding spot.

He hit print and watched nervously as the machine started working. He just needed a minute or so and then he could delete out the computer's history and his dad would never know a thing.

Unfortunately timing had never been one of Dave's close friends. He jerked upright as he heard footsteps in the hall upstairs.

What if it was his father? What if he came downstairs?

Dave scrambled to hit cancel, accidentally knocking the beer over and spilling it over the laptop's keyboard.

Crap!

He hit the button, but the touch pad was no longer responding as the liquid seeped into the inner workings of the laptop. He winced as he heard the strange bubbling and popping noises, but the laptop otherwise refused to respond.

No! He had to get this picture off the screen!

Dave hit the power button, but the laptop didn't react to that, either.

He heard the heavy footfalls at the top of the steps. Definitely his father.

Dave dove for the power cable and yanked it out of the wall, yelping as there was a tiny spark.

He looked wide-eyed at the laptop, the screen still lit, the picture still front and center. Why wouldn't it just die?!

Maybe he could just close the lid and hope that his dad wouldn't look at it…

But of course his dad would look at it. What else was Dave doing down here? His dad wouldn't just turn around and walk away without wondering what Dave was trying to hide. There was no way he wouldn't just re-open the laptop.

Dave was so screwed…

He gulped as he heard someone descending the stairs.

The beer had already ruined the laptop; why couldn't it just finish the job?! Still, the image remained on the screen.

The battery! Dave suddenly realized what should have been obvious the moment he'd unplugged the power supply. He needed to pop the battery. He grit his teeth as he picked up the laptop and frantically searched to find how to accomplish that.

His father was almost to the landing.

There wasn't time for this!

His mind raced frantically for an answer. It hit him and before he had time to reconsider he snatched up the candle and set the computer ablaze.

The beer ignited and within moments there was a loud bang as the electronic components burst and the laptop exploded in a ball of fire.

Dave stared at the mess wide-eyed. What had he done?!

Before he knew it, his father was there, smothering the flames with the blanket from the back of the couch.

"David!" his father turned on him as soon as the fire was out. "What happened…?!"

Dave gulped, coughing as he breathed in the acrid smoke. "I…spilled. And then I accidentally…" he motioned to the candle, knowing his explanation was lame.

He also knew it was completely in vain as he heard the sound of the printer completing its job.

There was no way Dave Karofsky's father was going to believe that he wasn't gay.


End file.
